Animation for Beginners

These past few weeks have felt like a foreign country to me. The animations that we have learned through After Effects have been helpful but it seems to me that I'm learning a lot slower than the others. I've been watching tutorials and trying to keep up in class, but I always seem to be a little farther behind. I would love to set a goal to be able to get better at animation and After Effects throughout the next few ways. I've gotten used to key frames and simple animations, but beyond that, I need to try a little bit harder and work towards getting better sooner rather than later.

Motion Graphics and Animation take 2

Second time around attempting this class for me, this time I'm going to try and retain use of my arms. I really want to get good at little stupid things, like doing YTPs (which might get their own post later) or a cool opening sequence for my DnD group.

The class blog is a great way to show the class stuff you're working on or stuff you think is neat. Sometimes Arturo looks it over in class MAKING people see what you posted! Cool, huh?

Some of my posts from last semester are here, check 'em out if you want to experience some stuff like Hasbro's gross attempts at theatrical releases , new 3D animation technologies , or cool use of textures on 3D characters 

It can be hard to get noticed, but Arturo's blog can totally make you go from this:

To having your thing be awesome and standing on its own:

Will there be awesome stuff from everyone this semester?

You bet.

Keep an eye out for it.

That's a Wrap

So I am going to make this post short and sweet, but I want to say how much I have learned in this class. The information and skills that I have gained, I know I will be able to use in the future. Whether it be for a job or just because I am bored and want to have some fun. I know that I will be able to use after effects to help.

The projects that we made for this class were all a lot of fun and helped to expand out knowledge on each section of after effects. Making these reels from scratch though was the most fun because we can say that we created these things from nothing. And that is what I am the most proud of.

Thank you, Arturo, for making this class enjoyable and knowledgeable because I never would have been able to learn it otherwise.

Last Blog!

So I must say that this has been a great class. Looking back to my first blog and seeing my 'Kayla' name project in After Effects is pretty funny. Some classes I am slightly glad to have end, but this one I really wish I wasn't done with. I am definitely going to continue to develop my country music video and play around with video copilot tutorials. This stuff is so exciting and I can see myself working out in the real world someday at a job where this is incorporated.

And you know what... after all of this I finally feel like all of the times Arturo says, "You guys can do this right now with what you know!" I actually can do. Thanks everyone for a fun semester. Have a great break!



(Here is a little Holiday Greeting created in After Effects.)

A Few Things I Find Interesting...

I'm finally getting around to posting my first blog- ever! This is a really neat requirement for the class; I like the idea of sharing our thoughts and opinions through here as opposed to solely class discussions. I want to admit that the first few days have been a little intimidating. I say this for a couple reasons- first off I think I'm the youngest student in the class as only being a sophomore and I haven't taken many production classes yet and while I am fascinated by motion graphics I don't have a clue what I'm doing yet! The program After Effects that we will be using is so sophisticated and intriguing I really want to play around and learn more. I wasn't sure before the class began if I would want to invest in the software, but after this past week I had to get my hands on it. No better way to learn than having access 24/7 without worrying about reserving a space in one of the labs. (By the way if anyone else is considering purchasing AE do it through the campus bookstore! As a student you can get a bundle of 9+ Adobe programs including AE for $350- way better than purchasing it online.)

Next, I have to say watching the interviews, videos, and title sequence clips in class has really made me think about all of the possibilities that can be produced. And as Arturo stated on the first day, "There isn't anything that can be imagined which can't be created." I stopped to think about this and it's very impressive. We can create apocalypses and travel to far away universes, just an infinite number of ideas that you can make happen with motion graphics and animation. My two favorite websites that we have been introduced to so far are videocopilot.net and watchthetitles.com! When I was sitting in class I instantly thought of the HBO series Game of Thrones title sequence because it's probably the most impressive one that I've seen recently. (I just started watching Game of Thrones over the summer.) If any of you haven't seen the title sequence check it out on YouTube because apparently my embed code didn't want to work. I'll try to get this taken care of.

That about concludes my first blog posting. :-) I can't wait to work with my classmates and learn all sorts of amazing things! I'm off to try to do our homework assignment- animating our name. See you guys soon!

Blog Post 1: Interest in Animation

In high school I took a computer class where we learned about tons of different adobe programs. We mostly learned about Photoshop, Dreamweaver, and Flash.  Messing around and learning to use Adobe Flash was the coolest thing to me. Getting to make a stick figure come to life, or a car drive off the screen was awesome to 15 year old me.  I convinced my teacher to let me have a copy for home so I could work on school projects and teach myself how to use the program better.

That was my first experience with animation, and even though they were very short and rough around the edges, I was very happy that I found something that I actually really liked to do.  Last semester I took a Flash Animation class and found that I still loved doing homework in that class and would spend much longer than I had to perfecting my animations.  While other people had stick figures that would glide across the screen, mine would walk.  If I cut corners and did the bare minimum, I could have still gotten an A. But I would know that I could have done better.  I wouldn't be proud to show it to anyone if it wasn't the best I could do. That led to a lot of late nights and extra effort that I tended to not put into  my other classes.

I'm not sure if I really like doing animation, or if I just can't stand when it looks bad.  Either way, there is a passion there that I don't have with a lot of other things that I do, and the way I look at it, that is something I need to pursue further. The first day of class I said that I didn't know what I wanted to do yet for my career.  This Motion Graphics and Animation class is the next step for me in narrowing down what I want to do. Since I am a TVR major, I am hoping that one way or another, I will be closer to figuring out what I want be when I grow up.

Projects, Life, and Motion Graphics

Hey All,

I just wanted to use this last blog post to reflect upon the things in class. When thinking back to how much a didn't know before I took this class, I finally realize how much I've learned during this class. I came in with no knowledge of motion graphics and now I feel like I can basically get things done, on my own, with no assistance from google or other people. For me, that feels like an accomplishment. As a video production concentration, I feel like a more well-rounded student. This class has also inspired me to take on a few project on my own and in my own time. I'm going to be studying in London soon and what I hope to do is take my Nikon N80 film camera, a couple rolls of film, and just take photos. After I come back though, I want to develop the rolls of film myself and upload them online. I think it's kind of a personal/adventure/nostalgic project. I wish everyone luck in their future endeavors and projects!